5 things to watch in VP debate

Paul Ryan will look to win for the Republican ticket tonight when he takes the debate stage at Centre College here against Joe Biden in the first national face-off in which he’s participated.

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Biden — for whom expectations have been lowered over the constant refrain of “What about your gaffes?” — will try his best to triumph, providing Democrats with a strong night to change the momentum of a race that has shifted slightly toward Mitt Romney.

The best case scenario for each? A clear win. The worst case scenario for each? A clear loss. The murkiest scenario for each? A debate that gets fought to a draw, which the press will interpret in different ways but which also likely won’t stop the GOP ticket’s momentum.

And of course, the debate’s subtext: Ryan and Biden are widely believed to be considering their own campaigns in 2016 (Ryan only if Romney loses).

Earlier this week, the congenitally quotable South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian predicted that Biden would take “the old meat-ax” to Ryan — a beating so one-sided that “the humane society” would have to be called in.

It’s a hope shared by many Democrats — including President Barack Obama himself, who is publicly contrite over his passivity at last week’s Denver debate — flabbergasted by the prospect of the president standing by while Romney got away, in their minds, with 90 minutes of lies, mischaracterizations and manufactured positions contrary to his own history.

Biden, one of his staffers told POLITICO, is “eager to draw the contrast — and very capable of doing so.”

But will it work?

Ryan’s perceived weakness — his wonkery and penchant for speaking in numbers — may actually prove to be the congressman’s greatest asset, a rope-a-dope tactic that will take voters into the policy weeds and blunt Biden’s attacks on tax policy, spending and foreign affairs. Obama was momentarily captivated by the Wisconsin congressman earlier in his term, telling aides that he was one of the few members of the GOP congressional crew he actually respected on an intellectual level.

But the vice president has his own arguments to make . Biden is likely to hammer away at the Medicare cuts Democrats claim are at the core of the Ryan budget passed by the GOP-controlled House, with polls showing older voters in key battlegrounds like Florida and Ohio deeply skeptical of the Republican approach. Biden, aides say, is also likely to emphasize Romney’s on-again, off-again support for Ryan’s plan — in an attempt to wedge the two apart.